THE ACCÜSED

Crossover Thrash / Hardcore Punk • United States

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The Accüsed is an early Seattle crossover thrash band. They formed in 1981 and recently released their 7th LP on Unrest Records (LP) and Condar Records (CD). They released their debut full-length studio album "The Return of... Martha Splatterhead" in 1986.

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THE ACCÜSED Reviews

"Grinning Like an Undertaker" is the 4th full-length studio album by US crossover/thrash metal act The Accüsed. The album was released through Nastymix in 1990. The band are quite legendary for being one of the first crossover acts to embrace the splatter/horror movie lyrical style and imagery. They have been cited for dubbing their style of music "Splatter Rock".

...that´s quite obvious when you see songtitles like "Pounding Nails (Into the Lid of Your Coffin)", "Bullet-Ridden Bodies", "The Corpse Walks" and "Boris the Spider" on the back of the album. "Grinning Like an Undertaker" is a bit different from the albums that came before it though and that unfortunately results in a quite inconsistent album. While the music on the album can still overall be called crossover thrash, The Accüsed now embrace alternative rock and metal too. "Down & Out (feat. the Mad Poet)" is the best (read: worst) example of this new direction. It´s a pretty bland alternative metal track featuring rap style vocals. On the other hand a track like "Pounding Nails (Into the Lid of Your Coffin)", which opens the albums, is quite a solid crossover thrash metal track. Blaine Cook´s caustic sneer really suits the most aggressive and raw tracks well, but when he tries to put some melody into his delivery on the more alternative tracks, it sure doesn´t sound pretty.

The album is packed in a sound production that´s decent, but not really powerful or well sounding. "Grinning Like an Undertaker" is one of those albums that can´t make up it´s mind on what musical direction it should pursue and therefore it´s caught between two chairs. The album simply sounds uninspired, confused and quite frankly full of half-baked ideas. There are a few decent tracks on the album, but even those can´t quite live up to past glories and the new alternative direction falls flat on it´s face if you ask me. A 2 star (40%) rating is warranted.